Australia COVID LIVE updates COVID-19 cases continue to grow across the nation as states and territories inch towards vaccination targets

Latest

1 of 1

Two childcare centres in Melbourne’s outer suburbs have been identified as exposure sites, forcing children and staff into two weeks of isolation, with a regional cinema screening also identified as a site of potential COVID-19 exposure.

Pakenham’s Cardinia Lakes Early Learning Centre, in Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs, is listed as a tier-1 exposure site between 6.10am and 4.30pm each day on September 27 to September 29.

Child’s Play Early Learning Centre in Tarneit, around 25 kilometres west of Melbourne’s CBD, was labelled a tier-1 exposure after a positive case visited between 7am and 6.30pm on September 30, and again at the same time on October 4 and 5.

A screening of horror film ‘Don’t Breathe 2’ has also been listed as a tier-1 exposure site at Showbiz Cinemas in Ballarat, with the time of exposure identified by the Department of Health as 9.20pm to 11.10pm on October 1.
Anyone who visits a tier-1 exposure site needs to isolate for 14 days and get tested immediately.

Australia will allow 2000 overseas nurses and doctors to enter the country for work under a plan being finalised by the Commonwealth and states to ease a healthcare staffing crisis.

With Melbourne and Sydney’s hospital beds jammed with COVID-19 patients and the health systems of other states also under strain, the reinforcements will be flown in over the next six months and predominantly dispatched to outer suburban and regional hospitals and GP clinics.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said doctors and nurses who had already applied to come to Australia would be able to sidestep travel restrictions to secure flights and take up critical jobs in our pandemic response.

“This will be a one-off boost to provide additional support,” Mr Hunt told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. “The Commonwealth is committed to it and the states are working constructively with us on it.”

The airlift is likely to be made up largely of migrants from Britain, Ireland and other countries where nursing and medical qualifications are recognised by regulators as being equivalent to those in Australia. This means they can start working shifts as soon as they arrive.

Read the full story here.

As NSW closes in on its 80 per cent COVID-19 vaccination target, some Sydney postcodes are trailing the rest of the state, with less than half their residents double-jabbed.

Across the city, data reveals stark disparities between neighbourhoods, with Chippendale and Silverwater at less than 40 per cent fully vaccinated, compared with northern suburbs of Lindfield and Newport with more than 80 per cent.

NSW tipped over its 70 per cent double-dose target on Wednesday afternoon, triggering multiple freedoms including the reopening of bars, retail and gyms to the fully vaccinated from Monday. More restrictions will be relaxed at 80 per cent, which the state is due to hit on October 25.

But a handful of inner Sydney postcodes, including Ultimo, Kingsford and Chippendale, are at less than 50 per cent double-dose, and dozens more, such as Potts Point, Lakemba, Eastlakes, Ashfield, Darlinghurst and Waterloo, are sitting between 50 and 59 per cent.

Read the full story here.

Hello and thanks for joining us this morning. In case you missed it, here are the big headlines from yesterday:

The federal government has announced booster shots for about 500,000 people who have severely weakened immune systems, which do not respond as strongly to the virus after two doses. The advice is that the boosters should be administered to this group two to six months after receiving their second dose.

Mildura in regional Victoria entered a seven-day lockdown at midnight with all Melbourne restrictions except for the curfew to be in place.

NSW recorded 646 new locally acquired cases and Victoria recorded 1838 cases on Friday.

Australia’s Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly has announced that he is updating advice for fully vaccinated healthcare workers who are exposed to the virus. Depending on the situation, they may not have to go into isolation, under new guidelines that Professor Kelly said have been agreed to by all states and territories.

Latest

1 of 1

Share this post